he unnamed boy's father, Weeraphol, whose surname has been withheld, told police his son had complained to him about hard work at school and getting "so distressed he did not want any more education".
Police said the boy told his father the same thing before buying a litre of petrol and hid�ing in the building, which housed a library.
Matichon Daily quoted the boy in an exclusive interview as saying: "I don't want to study here anymore. The students here are all selfish. The lessons are difficult and I could not catch up with them. The teach�ers are piling up pressure on me. So I decided to be a copycat."
Provincial governor Panadda Disakul deplored the boy's "ordeal" and expressed concern that young people may commit arson attacks for other motives.
Matichon said the boy was reportedly addicted to comput�er games and had occasionally been aggressive and made statements considered to be "eccentric and out of this world".
He allegedly started the fire at about 3am then waited in a toilet in the canteen nearby until morning, when he came out and was spotted by police.
The coed boarding school, which has 720 students, was forced to close for one week, as the first four floors of the sevenstorey building were damaged. But no one was hurt by the blaze.
The 11th grader from Nong Khai was a straightA student until recently, when his GPA (grade point average) slipped to 3.1. His father said his son may have a genetic mental problem which many of his relatives had.
Meanwhile, Kor Witthayakharn School in Warin Samrab district in Ubon Ratchathani caught fire early in the morning. No one was hurt.
Police did not rule out arson, after eyewitnesses said they saw a pickup truck speed away from a building where the fire broke out from a room on the second floor.
It was a two-storey, wood and concrete structure con�structed 67 years ago.
