Education Minister Anne Tolley says she believes there will be primary school league tables of some sort, but she hopes they will not focus only on literacy and numeracy.
Teachers have said they fear the use of national standards in schools to measure children's ability in reading, writing and maths will lead to the production of league tables to rank schools.
Ms Tolley says the community has a right to good information about their schools, and a working group is trying to come up with a way to ensure that information isn't taken out of context.
"I've said all along, I think that the media will try and put league tables together, and the challenge is to try and ensure that the information is presented in a way that gives the context for schools - so it's not just about what the schools are doing in literacy and numeracy."
The president of the primary teachers' union, Frances Nelson, says that when the group met with Ms Tolley last week she told them league tables seem to be inevitable.
That's disappointing, Ms Nelson says, because "we've been working very, very hard inside that group to try and get some traction with her team about considering any of the issues that we've put on - at the moment we just get a flat no."
The School Trustees Association says national standards are aimed at improving primary school pupil achievement, not providing information for league tables.
The association's president, Lorraine Kerr, says work is underway to address concerns about national standards data being used to rank schools.
