Ph.D training I believe should be independent and constructive. There is no point fixing specific semester for graduating scholars. My idea is this:
After registration, the KPI for moving from semester 1 to subsequent semesters should be clearly specified. eg. To move from semester 1 to semester 2, a scholar might be required to produce a conference paper, etc. With this idea, you can be in your 3rd year of study and remain semester 1. (its completely up to you). This will reward hard-work and this idea of graduating students without publications will stop. In other ways, it will also help UTM achieve the desired number of papers in selected journals. With this idea, a brilliant student may fulfill all requirements necessary for semester 6 in semester 3 and should be graduated accordingly.
example might be….
SEM1 SEM2 SEM3 SEM4 SEM5 SEM6
1(CP) 1(SJ) 2(CP)+1(SJ) 1(ISI) 1(ISI)+1(SJ) etc