In 1989 Ganster and Reilly [6] introduced and studied the notion of LC-continuous
functions via the concept of locally closed sets. In this paper we consider a stronger form of
LC-continuity called contra-continuity. We call a function f:(X,τ)→(Y,σ) contra-continuous if the
preimage of every open set is closed. A space (X,τ) is called strongly S-closed if it has a finite dense
subset or equivalently if every cover of (X,τ) by closed sets has a finite subcover. We prove that contra-continuous
images of strongly S-closed spaces are compact as well as that contra-continuous, β-continuous images of S-closed spaces are also compact. We show that every strongly S-closed space
satisfies FCC and hence is nearly compact.