Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, stirred up a hornet’s nest last week by proposing the “shock treatment” of separate classes for black boys in an effort to reverse their consistent underachievement in schools. As he predicted, his idea was roundly criticised, not least by black teachers, but everyone agrees that a major initiative is required.

Just suppose that “the problem” has been viewed through the wrong end of the telescope and the solution lies in plain sight. This is the hypothesis of Dr Tony Sewell, an education consultant who has put into action an imaginative scheme called Generating Genius that stands normal assumptions on their head. It has now caught the eye of the government, which has invited Sewell to explain his concept.

The basic conundrum is beyond dispute. Black pupils start school with some of the best scores in baseline assessments but in the course of their education they fall farther and farther behind. In 2003, nearly 70% of African and Caribbean boy pupils left school with fewer than five GCSEs or their equivalents — the lowest level of achievement of any ethnic group.

But these figures don’t tell the whole story, Sewell contends. “There is a significant number of the boys — perhaps half — who are very bright. Because official policy has been to concentrate on children with extreme behaviour or social problems, this group has been neglected. As a result their potential isn’t fulfilled.”

It is this hidden subgroup who will become role models and exert a new kind of peer pressure in his ambitious experiment. In August, a score of 12-year-old black boy pupils from some of Britain’s most deprived schools will spend a month studying medicine and research science at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. It is a rolling programme that fast-tracks the boys until they are 18, increasing the intake to 50 boys next year and 100 the year after. Eventually, a “ critical mass” of black exemplars will emerge.

“They’re going to be taught to become doctors and scientists,” Sewell says. “We reckon that in three or four years they will be ahead of the game. We’re going to some of the most deprived schools to prove that poverty isn’t the issue.”

The secret is enlisting the boys’ enthusiasm while they are young. “People say, ‘How can you talk about doctors at the age of 11?’ But by the time black boys have reached 15, it’s too late to intervene. It’s all about the possibility of going to jail. The time to get them is when they’re green and ready.”

He argues that head teachers should reverse the policy, driven by league tables, of committing their best teachers to pupils taking exams, at the expense of younger pupils. Fostering young talent should be a strategy for school children of all races, he believes.

Why Jamaica? He says the absence of adult black role models in British education makes such a project unfeasible in this country. “I was the only black lecturer at Leeds University and a friend of mine is the only black lecturer at Birmingham University. In Jamaica they will see that every person in a position of authority looks like them. That fact alone is very important.” Jamaican lecturers will teach the British boys a modified course.

He has criticised Phillips’s suggestion as “a crude form of segregation” that would cause resentment within schools. But won’t the creation of a privileged black elite cause similar division? “I don’t mind targeting, but I don’t agree with students being pulled out of classrooms. What makes my programme strategically attractive is that it is a smart way of tackling peer group pressure.”

Indeed, Sewell is counting on a ripple effect in each British school that sends candidates, chosen by merit in “unashamed competition”. He has already seen the effects. “There is such a hunger that everyone wants to go on this course. Nobody wants to be a gangster any more — they all want to be doctors.” On the pupils’ return, they are expected to talk about the lessons they have learnt and demonstrate their skills.

One of the schools chosen to select three pupils for the project was a byword for failure. Until recently Homerton college of technology in Hackney was earmarked for possible closure, although academic results improved recently. Three-quarters of its 960 boy pupils, drawn from one of the most impoverished parts of London, come from ethnic minority backgrounds.

An air of palpable excitement infected eight boys pitted against each other for the school’s three places when the contenders and their parents gathered last Thursday. They are all high-flyers who have scored well in science, but few have the advantages of upbringing that sometimes accompany academic achievement.

“I want to do medicine because my mum died of asthma when I was 10 years old,” says Don Sebastian Lawson. Seraj Newland, whose Indian family came from Jamaica, is similarly motivated. “I want to operate on animals. My father died about six years ago and he looked after animals.”

Troy Goldie wants to become a brain surgeon. “I do virtual organ games and I got 96% right on the nervous system. I want to find cures for disease and learn how the brain works.” His enthusiasm is unrestrained. “I knew this project was made for me. It’s just a remarkable experience to go to Jamaica and it could lead to a career in medicine.”

They all say the project has created a buzz. “A lot of children are trying to come in,” says Korey Dixon. “They have been asking teachers for more work.”

Jennifer Sanderson, a single mother who works for Royal Mail, admits she is a strict parent but says her son, Myles, has made her proud. “Black kids need a big heave-ho because they are into the fast life. Maybe it makes you die young, but it doesn’t educate you to live.”

That should be music to Phillips’s ears.

For more information, e-mail generatinggenius@yahoo.co.uk