Germany’s national education standards for mathematics name the process-related competences that mathematics teaching is to build. The standing conference of the state education ministers first adopted them in 2003 and 2004 and revised them on 23 June 2022. The list includes Probleme mathematisch lösen, solving problems mathematically, and Mathematisch modellieren, modeling mathematically. In the primary school standards of 2004, Problemlösen, problem solving, comes first.
The standards describe the first competence step by step. It starts vom Erkennen und Formulieren mathematischer Probleme, from recognizing and formulating mathematical problems. It goes on to choosing suitable heuristics and developing a way to the solution. Modeling, they say, is about das Lösen eines realen Problems mit Hilfe von Mathematik, solving a real problem with the help of mathematics.