A 39-year-old teacher committed suicide at her home in Buri Ram, leaving a note saying she was overwhelmed by the pressures placed on her at work.
The tragedy prompted a commitment by the Office of the Basic Education Commission to investigate the circumstances leading to her taking her own life.
The woman's body was found by neighbours and reported to police about 8am on Monday.
She was Anusara Chuanram, 39, known as Mut, and lived in Chamni district.
Anusara was an English teacher at a local school in the northeastern province, Pol Col Ruengsak Saengram, deputy superintendent for investigations at Thamen Chai police station, said on Tuesday.
There were no signs of assault on her body or in her room. She had been dead for at least three hours when found, police said.
Beside her was a five-page letter, in Thai, “A personal letter to my family, Mut".
Police said the first four pages had messages to her parents and an older sister, including parting words to take care of her 10-year-old daughter.
The letter’s last page was about her problems at work.
“June 16, at 1am, I decided to leave this world due to physical and mental fatigue caused by an overload of work problems involving accounting and finance that I could not resolve” Mut wrote.
“However, I was not the only one responsible for these problems. There is also the ineffective, systemised working process within the school.”
She said the work of managing the school's finances was dumped on her and she had no help from anyone. It had caused her health problems for some time.
She had decided to take her own life because of "a colleague who always assigns the work but refuses to be involved when found out".
Mut also mentioned school directors she said were "positioned there". None of them were strict with management of the school's finances and lacked financial knowledge.
She apologised to her colleagues who were not involved, and said she accepted responsibility for any mistakes she had made.
“To the Ministry of Education, please show sympathy for teachers who labour under finance and procurement regulations. Don’t make them work this hard and risk their life like this,” the 39-year-old teacher ended the letter.
On Tuesday, Siripong Angsakulkiat, vice minister of education, said the ministry had been informed of the tragedy by the education commission.
“We accept that teachers have many responsibilities, and the ministry is trying to reduce their workload as much as possible,” Mr Siripong said.
Over the past two years problems had persisted at small schools due to a lack of human resources, resulting in teachers having to also handle budget management, he said.
Mr Siripong said the ministry was considering allocating a budget for the hiring of administrative staff, so teachers could concentrate firmly on their job, without the demands of extra work.
Education commission secretary Thanu Wongjinda said after a meeting to discuss the events that Buriram Primary Education Service Area Office 1 had been instructed to set up a panel to investigate the circumstances of Anusara's death and those responsible.
“This must be the last such incident, we will protect teachers to the best of our ability,” Mr Thanu said.