Nick Clegg’s recent comments regarding the “prejudice” faced by Oxbridge graduates pursuing a career in the public sector represent a misguided view of the expanding range of prospects which recent graduates enjoy.

In fact, many public sector employers are working hard to increase the number of Oxbridge graduates applying to their schemes, as evidenced by both the presence of recruiters at Oxford and Cambridge and the number of Oxbridge graduates within public sector industries.

Some of the most successful schemes in the sector, including Frontline, Teach First, the Civil Service Fast Stream and the NHS graduate programme, ran a highly successful panel talk in Oxford two weeks ago, in which the representatives from each scheme were Oxbridge graduates.

Furthermore, the presence of Frontline and Teach First at Careers Fairs in Oxford and Cambridge for the past few years has been impossible to ignore.

While it may be the case that certain public sector employers are shunning Oxbridge graduates in an attempt to shed the image of “elitism”, there are plenty of others who are aiming their grad schemes specifically at Oxbridge students.

For students who want to make a difference and, in Clegg’s words, “give back”, schemes such as Frontline and Teach First are leading the way. 1 in 10 Oxbridge students apply to Teach First, and Oxford University alone contributed 96 graduates to Teach First’s 2013 intake of 1200 people.

Frontline, a brilliant new graduate programme that has a similar structure to Teach First and focuses on child protection social work, has also contributed to a surge in Oxbridge applications to public sector jobs. Of Frontline’s first cohort, 73% are from Russell Group universities, including 20% from Oxbridge. Only last week, a Frontline representative was in Oxford calling on more final year students to apply before this Friday’s deadline.

Frontline’s success represents a real change in attitudes towards public sector jobs among Oxbridge students. Clegg’s claim that employers from the public sector do not want Oxford graduates is far from the truth and potentially damaging to both teaching and social work, at a time when both are benefiting from a real surge in top graduates.

Upon gaining a place on the Frontline programme, Francis Goodburn, a recent Oxford graduate in Computer Science, said, “The two things I most want from a job are to know what I am doing is truly worthwhile and to take on varied, challenging work every day. With this in mind, social work seems like a fantastic career choice. I’m particularly excited about Frontline’s model of on-the-job training, and learning leadership skills that could help me make a difference to the lives of children and families. Having now secured a place on the Frontline programme, I’m looking forward to embarking on a career I may not otherwise have had the opportunity to do.”

Students like Francis must not be put off from applying to life-changing schemes like Frontline. Public sector grad schemes are not prejudiced towards Oxbridge graduates Mr Clegg; they are targeting and having great success in drawing in the brightest students and graduates.

This week Oxford students will go to the polls to decide their representatives for the coming academic year. In our annual campus-wide nod to democracy, a handful of candidates will battle it out for the votes of the ~15 % who were going to vote anyway, and the few percentage points otherwise who can be persuaded via personal connections; while the other 80 % continue in blissful ignorance.

The problem is, I’m not even sure that pitiful proportion of people will bother to vote. This election has been interesting in only one way – that it is hard to predict what the result will be. Apart from that it seems to have been quite boring, or even worse, not even register on people’s radar.

We have fewer candidates than usual, and not many of them are doing anything overly interesting. Half the promises are just photocopies from previous years, and the hustings remain bland, with little criticism coming from the candidates themselves. If you haven’t even got the courage to call out your opponents on the policy proposals you know to be hollow and misplaced, how are you going to have the strength to take on a room full of Oxford Dons, and win for students?

So candidates, there’s a few days left – let’s take this up a gear. Call out the crap, support the superb, and give students a debate they can get interested in. Because all of you nodding along to how important extended library opening hours are, is not going to drive people to the ballot box.

On the other hand, Louis Trup may encourage more than usual to vote. His new, slimmed-down weekly email appears to be getting more traction that the fluff-filled electronic message sagas of recent Presidents. Hopefully this can be turned into electoral participation, and convert this affair, from what can at times be a glorified popularity contest, into an election about policy and proposals.

And don’t feel that you, as the reader of this, get to shirk you democratic responsibility to vote, just because I think everything’s not how I want it to be. There are still some excellent candidates out there, with some new and bold ideas. There are some new faces, who’ve made a few slip-ups in their promises, but I’m sure will come through to be good Officers in 6 months’ time. And then there’s some real dross, which needs weeding out and rejecting.

The fact is, this election is still all to play for. None of the slates have outperformed in the husts or manifestos, and all of them have failed to convert their wider team into the kind of people-power machine needed to dominate the election. This gives us a race where independent candidates, especially those with good society-based connections, can still prevail.

Intrepid reader, you’ve stuck with me this far. Now make it all worthwhile. There is no Labour Club mega-slate Goliath this year that everyone expects to win – that beast was slain last year by our modern day David, Mr Trup. So your vote genuinely matters and can make a real difference. Read their proposals, watch the videos, and if you’ve got a question, contact the candidate. If after all of that, there’s no-one good enough for you, then vote Re-Open Nominations (RON). It’s your way of telling the candidates “I like democracy, but I don’t like you”.

There’s one problem, however. In the contests for Student Trustee, and NUS Delegate, there is no RON. And there aren’t more candidates than positions – so they already know they’ve been elected. But there is still one way we can all make our voice at least heard. The elections use the Single Transferrable Vote system, where you give your top preference a ‘1’, and continue numbering candidates after that until you no longer have any preference. Don’t think someone’s good enough to be NUS Delegate of Student Trustee? Then don’t give them a preference. As I’ve said before, there’s some dodgy candidates out there – don’t give them the satisfaction of having as strong a mandate as their colleagues. It will show up in the results and make our feelings as clear as day.

A few years ago, a slate of OUSU candidates ran under the name ‘Another Education is Possible’. Our socialist chums failed to gain enough support to see that come into fruition. This year, my tagline has to be ‘Another Election is Possible’. I just need your help to make the possibility, a reality. So candidates, let’s see a little more passion and conviction. And voters – get out there and vote – this could be the closest election in years.

Last year’s OUSU elections were a joke — lit-erally. In a moment of collective disdain at our student union, we elected a man who promised us world peace, a monorail service, and to eliminate Fifth Week. All scrawled on a “personifesto” using crayons.

Whilst I’m still waiting on the monorail, and the world seems distinctly unpeaceful, the election of someone who was originally a joke candidate did have a serious message behind it. Oxford students (or at least the plurality of those who voted) signalled that they did not take the institution that represents them seriously.

We can now look back and laugh. Louis Trup turned out to be a reasonable student leader. But OUSU still feels like an outsider institution in the ‘Oxford bubble’, removed from normal student life. The upcoming election’s severe lack of candidates only reinforces that idea.

So what is wrong with OUSU? Why are there so few candidates in this election? Why are we so dismissive of a type of institution that flourishes on other campuses across the country?

I had hoped that a year after Trup’s election we might have seen some changes: that OUSU would have rebranded itself, reached out to show us how important it was, and played a more visible role in university life. I’d hoped elections this time round would have been highly contested and therefore interesting.

But with a week to go, that fervour and debate is nowhere to be seen. Last year we blamed the calibre and intentions of those running — a predictable medley of slates and personalities. But we can’t say that this year. Those that are running have serious intentions — there just aren’t enough of them.

This lack of candidates is damaging to the student population of the University. It makes us look uninterested, ignorant of real student issues, and detached from students elsewhere in the country. And internally, a lack of candidates and competition makes OUSU uninspiring and dissuades those who could really bring about change from running.

Only through participation will this cycle of uninteresting elections producing a lack of candidates year-on-year be broken. Only when the student population starts to take part in the process will others be incentivised to run and inject some much-needed energy into OUSU. And with a R.O.N. option, we’re fully able to signal that none of the candidates are suitable and that we want more choice.

Of course, OUSU has to respond too. We have to be shown the importance of student lobby- ing, a presence in university committees, and representation at NUS. We need to know what OUSU could do for us in the future. But the more engaged people are with these issues, and the more students run, the more we’re likely to hear.

We can’t change the number of candidates running this year now. But rather than shrugging our shoulders come election day, we need to let OUSU know what we want and that we do care. Unless we turn out and cast our vote, nothing will change next year.

Every year, students from our own number step up to present their views on how they would make all our experiences in Oxford better. It isn’t easy. The people whose promises and claims have been set out in these pages, on social media, in manifestos and at hustings make significant personal sacrifices.

But, it is important you quiz them. Whilst many people may run because they want to improve Oxford, many who have previously been elected through OUSU elections have not truly cared about the things they have claimed to (or haven’t done anything about it). The recent history of OUSU is a story of those doing amazing work being held back by those who aren’t. You need to make sure that the people you elect are honest, genuine, capable, and committed.

Buzzwords will fly around like “representation”, “liberation” and “engagement”. Ask candidates what they understand these terms to mean. “Don’t let people hide behind the buzzwords. Ask for more effective representation, ask for concrete action to help the liberation of oppressed groups, ask who needs to be engaged and how they will engage them.

OUSU is changing — we are updating all our governing documents to make it easier for your elected officers to do things. We are expanding our activity to increase support given to RAG and clubs and societies. We are unifying the system of course reps and departmental representation. You should ask for big things from the people standing.

And make sure you expect a lot from those running for NUS delegate, Student Trustee and Part-Time Executive roles. Whilst they may still be doing their degrees, the people who fill these positions act as some of the key links between the Student Union and common rooms, campaigns and the wider national student movement of which we are a part. Don’t compromise on these roles as they can have a significant impact on your time in Oxford.

This time can be a great opportunity for you to say how crap OUSU is. And on many fronts, you would be right in saying that it isn’t great. But don’t be an armchair critic.

Get involved by looking at manifestos and voting. Ironically, you can do this from an armchair. So actually, feel free to be an armchair critic, just make sure you have a computer there and vote, even if you vote to re-open nominations.

I ran because I was tired of the same old rubbish coming from the people who represented me. I wanted a student union that did more for more people and did it better. You have the chance to change your student union and subsequently your experience as a student. You don’t even need to make a silly video or a manifesto do it. It does actually matter a lot, its not very hard to do and it will make me happy, so please do have your say.