This article is a summary of the 2019-2020 "Mapping the Terrain" research of the Advancing Education in Muslim Societies (AEMS) initiative, an annual study that started in 2018. During the 2019-2020 academic year, data on values and competencies was collected in fifteen communities of interest, namely Muslim-majority societies with focus on students in secondary schools and higher education as well as teachers and university instructors. This brief shares the results of the survey to inspire further empirical research and exploration of ways to advance education goals and transformation. To do so, this study utilizes evidence-based knowledge accumulated as a resource for the reform of education agenda in Muslim-thinmajority societies. Thus, the long-term goal is to contribute to the decision-making and implementation of learning standards, policies, pedagogy, and curriculum to ultimately improve the growth and development trajectory of the next generations of youth. While conducting this study and toward the end of the data collection cycle, the world was locking down because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Many lives have been lost since the beginning of 2020, and the economic, mental, and social impacts of the pandemic are yet to be understood completely. Despite the hardship, a little less than 20,000 people participated in the paper-and-pencil surveys in 15 different locations. They were recruited based on permissions and approvals from ministries of education in some locations and directly from private school principals and supervisors in others. Convenient sampling, instead of random sampling, was used where access was granted to schools and Muslim-majority communities and their districts of residence.